In Stitches
by Jason Tandro
Summary: Harley incurs the wrath of the Joker and as he plays out his revenge upon her, she reflects upon her status as merely a plaything to him - a toy for his amusement. Psychological study of both characters and their dysfunctional relationship, using bondage as metaphor. NSFW Content, be warned. TW: Abuse (Apologies if the dialogue seems stilted, I'm writing outside my comfort zone.)


**In Stitches**

"I think you need it to be bigger," Harley said, putting her finger down on the canvas. "If that's supposed to be a net, anyway."

Mr. J rarely welcomed her input on his schemes and this was no exception. He grew weary of trying to constantly explain his machinations to a girl who constantly needed to be reminded that her place was at his side. She was a doll to be used as a device in his plots and nothing more. A doll that was nice to look at and fun to play with, but a doll nonetheless.

He brushed her hand away. Gentleness was always his first tactic. Unless it wasn't. He wanted her to know that she had displeased him and correct it on her own. But he also wanted to force her to admit her mistake. He could ravage her right there on the table, or maybe he could pull her teeth out one at a time and then sew up her nagging mouth. Maybe he should lock her away in a display case. A doll, nothing more.

Words were necessary, unfortunately, as the girl continued to hang about like a shadow. A little troll that sat on his shoulder and whispering doubt into his mind. Or perhaps that was one of the other voices, but unlike Harley he had learned to live in harmony with them.

"Harley, that's not a net, that's a hood. It will fall down on the Batman and tighten around the collar here," he condescended to point to a tightening circular mechanism at the bottom of what the pretty little doll had thought was a net. "Then he really will be blind as a bat! But that's not all. This part will activate like so..."

He explained his most recent bit of genius more to himself. He knew the doll couldn't really appreciate it. The joke was subtle, like a bit of clever wordplay at a gala or a school bus on fire. More quacking from the harpy. He looked over towards his canvas and considered his options.

"But what if he dodges it, puddin'?" She asked.

His backhand was swift and hard against her cheek. It pained him to have to correct his little pet so. It pained him how often he had to correct her. His hand hurt slightly, but the pain was satisfying in a way. It reminded him of all the good he did for her. He reached for his knife but sadly one of the little trolls told him that would not be productive. Fun, but not productive.

The doll was quivering now. What was her name again? Harley. She looked up at him now with the same weepy expression she got whenever he was forced to correct her. He loved the sight of her crystal tears on her painted face, yet at the same moment he wanted to rip her eyes out so that he would never see them again.

"I'm sorry, boss," she said between her pathetic sniffles.

"I am trying to _work_ Harley," he said as he lifted her up off the ground by her hair. She let out a gasp. Too harsh. It was ungentlemanly to strike a lady. That old rule never said anything about bending her over onto the table and fucking her like a beast. No – that _would_ be a distraction and he still had to work. Fuck his work. Fuck his doll. Maybe he should fuck his doll. Maybe he should fuck his work and retire. "You need to go back to your room."

He pinned her arm behind her back and shoved her to the ground again. He reached onto his table and grabbed the first thing that his hand touched – a small metal object with a trigger. A gun? He didn't remember getting a gun. Oh well, best see what one of these things can do to the doll. He aims, and fires and a small soft pellet hits the girl in the head. Just a dart gun? Why would he buy a dart gun? Why didn't he have a real gun to run the girl's crimson on the ground? No, he preferred a knife anyways. And the dolly was useful.

The pellet opened, and a small green gas filled her nostrils. She hacked and coughed – god he hated that sound. She eventually fell silent on the ground before him. There was an opportunity here, and he couldn't help but take it.

Harley awoke suddenly. First thing that she felt was her stinging lip. That was no surprise. Usually when she woke up some part of her face hurt. She didn't know how she could be so stupid. All she wanted to do was help her puddin' and yet she always forced him to have to correct her. Even with the haze of whatever knock out drug he'd used on her this time she felt the wet sting at her lips of blood.

Wait, something wasn't right? That wasn't blood… drool? Her tongue felt strained, and then she realized he had a large rubber ball in her mouth. As sensation returned to her she felt the straps on either side of her cheeks. A ball gag. This was different. But then Mr. J was never predictable. She looked around and saw that her arms were bent in a strange ballerina like pose, her left hand daintily to her side and her right up in the air just above her head. They were held in place by thin razor wire which dug into her skin.

She tried to look down but then realized she couldn't move her head- a collar locked her head into position and some wire around the top of her head kept her head level. She could move left and right, but not up or down. Fortunately, there was a reflective glass surface not even two feet in front of her. She could see her lower half before she felt it. Mr. J had put her in a ballerina outfit – a white dress and ballet shoes, the razor wire around her wrists tied to her ankles to force her to be on pointe, one leg in the air as if mid-pirouette and all her weight on her tiptoes of her left foot. If it were not the wires holding her in place she would have buckled under the strain. Her mask was gone too, just her pretty blonde hair let down and her face paint.

She stared for a minute at this strange girl in her reflection. What kind of game was Mr. J up to now?

Lights flickered on and the circumstances became apparent to her. She was in an over-large display case in the back room of Mr. J's warehouse. As soon as the lights came on, a music box at her feet began playing, the singsong melody echoing loudly, reverberating off the close glass walls. And then, Harley began to spin in a circle. The sudden movement caused her stomach to tense as the pain from the wires increased. At her first half-turn she saw Mr. J waiting for her on the other side, sitting in a big green arm chair and clapping his hands in rhythm with the music.

He watched her spinning, his precious little doll living up to her new role. He was pleased to see that the trap he had constructed originally for the Catwoman would work just fine, though he wondered if he would ever let Harley out. She was so beautiful: spinning there, unable to talk or nag him, in a white dress and shoes dancing forever just for him. Maybe he would leave her there until her bones were all that danced. But she was fun.

He stopped clapping and at the girls third pass he saw her expression again, the same frightful expression he loved from his victims. The tension of not knowing. The dread of ignorance. The anguish of obliviousness. He had to get back to work. Maybe he would just leave her there to spin for a few hours while he got his work done.

Yes, he had to get back to work.

He moved away from his doll and hummed along with the music; god he _hated this song!_ He turned back to his work and the girl danced and danced. Her whimpers of pain and her pathetic begging glances for forgiveness blissfully unseen and unheard.

Harley awoke several hours later. This time it was the pain in all her limbs that woke her. The cutting sting off the razor wire and on her toes. She felt a new pain as well. It wasn't the razor wire, but it was in the places where it had dug into her skin. She was able to look around this time, though it was much darker.

She had been cut down, or Mr. J had let her out. She was sitting on a big red rocking chair. No ball gag, but she still couldn't speak. She looked at her wrists. Long thigh high socks covered her arms. She tried to pull them off but… she gasped and saw that they were stitched onto her arms. The same had been done to her legs. She tried to open her mouth, but a piece of duct tape kept it firmly shut. She felt a soft bit of cotton cloth stuffed in her mouth behind the tape. There was no mirror this time, but she wasn't sure she wanted to see the sight she made now, her body forced back into the chair.

And then Mr. J appeared, standing over her as he always did. Only this time he towered above her, standing at least ten times her height. As Harley struggled to get off the chair he picked her up and shook her; a mere ragdoll to him. The stitches dug further into her skin, penetrating her body, the gag stopped her cries from being anything more than a faintly muffled scream. He was hurting her. Like he always hurt her. She wanted it to stop but he crushed her tighter and tighter in his hand. The shaking continued, the stitches dug into her flesh. He was hurting her. Like he always hurt her.

Harley awoke again, but this time she knew it was reality immediately. Mr. J stood over her, his usual height and proportions. The lanky frame and wild expression that she knew and loved. Handcuffs, and a stuffed tape gag. That was all.

"You danced very pretty for me, Harley," the Joker laughed. There was a callous glee that was usually reserved for his enemies. "Unfortunately, you have continued to distract me. I will need to correct that."

She was nude. It became suddenly apparent to her as she felt his hand on her cunt. The only time he ever removed his gloves was to play with her. She still hurt and was still exhausted and now hungry and thirsty – how long had she been made to dance?

His fingers began to pry and prod her sex. With his free hand he stoked her breasts as he looked upon her. The hunger in his eyes was apparent. Her pain meant nothing to him. She was just his doll; just a plaything to him.

But damn it was she ready to be played with.

He petted his doll now, the hunger inside him growing with each moment. The trolls that despised the girl were conspicuous in their silence. The need overcame him – the one that he hated because of its distractions and the one that he loved because it brought him so much pleasure.

His first-time using Harley for this purpose had been by all accounts a mistake. It had been a long and frustrating night after a particularly painful failed attempt at his usual trade and he had to take it out on Harley and simply beating her wasn't enough. It came down to either using her to relieve his unfortunate yet inescapable biological urges or chop her into bits and feed her remains to starving children. Again, he decided as he always had since that point; she was too useful to remove. Besides, he wasn't sure where he could find a meat grinder that big.

They thrashed about on the floor of a seedy little apartment, Harley screaming with pleasure and ranting some nonsense about love and how good he felt. After that night he knew it would happen again and resolved to pick up a variety of means to keep her shut during the experience. When he first showed her the bright green ball gag he'd picked out for her, she simply shrugged.

"Kinky," she said with a hint of a smile.

The second time they copulated was actually a reward of sorts. He'd managed to capture one of the Batman's little partners and Harley had been dressed in a rather anatomically accentuating outfit in the style of a French maid. In went the gag to keep him from hearing that dreaded "L" word again, and for good measure (and to complete the illusion of the kinky fun) her arms were tied tightly behind her with rope. When he was finished, she was left like that all night. His poor doll woke up with some rope burns, but no serious injuries.

And since then, they'd joined ten more times. This would be the baker's dozen. He had envisioned this moment coming with a horrible joke his – plans that involved shoving a pie into her face mid-coitus while making an unusually off-color comparison. But circumstances were different now. Her body lay bare before him. Her eyes at first glance gave off that same dread and fear… but it was superficial. Behind her eyes he saw the hunger she held for him. She was only play-acting at fear because she knew what it did to him. She was a good actress – she did have her uses. And all the trolls that hated her were conspicuous in their silence as he looked upon her form, his hands still absent-mindedly toying with her parts.

He decided it was best to get this over with. Before she got the impression that she had somehow pleased him. He turned her over and gave her three swift spankings, but quickly decided that wouldn't do. Wrapping the small metal circle around his palm he spanked her again, this time the electric shock of the buzzer adding ripples of tension across her skin and lightning through her belly.

These screams, muffled by the makeshift gag, were more in tune with him. He positioned himself to finish the lurid act and thrust into her. Her legs pulsated with pleasure and she was trembling with delight. Her fingers twitched and struggled against the handcuffs. He knew she wanted to touch him, but he didn't care.

More twitching, more sweating and panting, and finally the familiar feeling of relief and brief ecstasy. Yes, the doll was pretty. The doll had her uses.

Harley panted and struggled for breath, though as she was gagged and face down against a soft blanket getting precious air was hard. And yet it magnified the pleasure running through her body a hundred-fold as she came, body quaking from the shock and the sick pleasure she took from the pain he inflicted on her. She was a good little doll. She knew that Mr. J probably didn't care about her. Even as he undid her handcuffs, took the gag out of her mouth and gave her a quick teasing kiss, she knew there was nothing in it. She was just his plaything.

Back when she was a psychiatrist she would have recognized the signs of even this tiny bit of emotional abuse (to say nothing of Mr. J's physical and imaginative means of torture) and told the woman confiding in her these details to run as far away as she could. But she never realized how much fun you could have being a toy. She never fathomed that simply being an object could be so liberating. She bit her lip trying to savor the pain as Mr. J returned to his work, leaving her standing there naked in the dark. Part of her wanted to bash his abusive head in. Part of her wanted to cut his manhood off and feed it to dogs. But right now, most of her little imps were telling her that she loved everything he did to her. They were enjoying themselves and as far as she was concerned; this dance could go on forever.


End file.
